There was plenty to cheer in last Friday's employment report.The headline numbers showed payroll growth rebounded to apreliminary tally of 248,000 net new jobs in September, up from adisappointing tally the prior month. Heading into the fourthquarter, monthly average employment gains are the best we have seenin fifteen years. The other lingua franca measure of labor markethealth, the unemployment rate fell below 6.0 percent for the firsttime since mid-2008, putting it within range of the so-callednatural rate of unemployment. As of August, the CongressionalBudget Office estimates (emphasis on estimates) the current naturalrate of unemployment is 5.7 percent.

Judging by the raft of commentary on Friday, commercial realestate market participants have wasted little time in linking thelatest job numbers to favorable expectations for propertyfundamentals. But even a cursory review of the data shows theimprovements are uneven along dimensions that matter for ourindustry. Among the most important qualifiers, wage growth remainslackluster. As compared to the prior month, average hourly earningsof private sector employees actually declined by one cent. Theyear-over-year trend, illustrated in the following chart andsourced from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, shows nominal earningsgrowth stuck at roughly 2.0 percent. That has been something of apuzzle of late for economists, since the lower unemployment rateand the improving balance of job openings to available workersshould be fomenting stronger wage gains.